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World Health Organization Calls For Decriminalization of Drug Use
An anonymous reader writes: We've known for a while: the War on Drugs isn't working. Scientists, journalists, economists, and politicians have all argued against continuing the expensive and ineffective fight. Now, the World Health Organization has said flat out that nations should work to decriminalize the use of drugs. The recommendations came as part of a report released this month focusing on the prevention and treatment of HIV. "The WHO's unambiguous recommendation is clearly grounded in concerns for public health and human rights. Whilst the call is made in the context of the policy response to HIV specifically, it clearly has broader ramifications, specifically including drug use other than injecting. In the report, the WHO says: 'Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize injection and other use of drugs and, thereby, reduce incarceration. ...Countries should ban compulsory treatment for people who use and/or inject drugs." The bottom line is that the criminalization of drug use comes with substantial costs, while providing no substantial benefit.
Drugs are bad.... OKa ;-)
The government profits from illegal drugs even more than drug cartels do.
I invite you to consider what would happen if we make them legal. The government would tax them to an absurd level, a black market would still exist (look at tax-free cigarettes and their role in criminal revenue), consumption would be more widespread on account of the disintegration of social mores against usage, and we'd be tying a government's income into drug consumption, giving them a perverse incentive to continue the use of said drugs. The government would go from "enemy of the cartels" to "yet another cartel," a title I feel they already have from heavy lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry.
I'm all for a repeal of the nastier drug laws and an eventual stop to the "War on" mentality, but there has to be a better strategy here than the "legalize it mon" that I hear college students repeat ad nauseum.